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UNC-Chapel Hill Helps Nonprofit Explore E-learning in Romania
by John McMahon
In the decade since they overthrew communism, no other problem faced by the Romanian people has received more international attention than the plight of its children. When the world became aware of the overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and profound neglect experienced by the children in Romania's state-run orphanages it was shocked into action. Since the early 1990s Romania, with assistance from foreign aid and nonprofit organizations (NGOs), has been working to prevent child abandonment, reduce its use of orphanages, and reform its child welfare system.
Skilled, knowledgeable social workers are essential to the success of these change efforts. Yet social work, having been banned from 1967 until 1989, is itself a new profession in Romania. Because of this fact, training new social workers and retraining those who used to work in orphanages (which are now being closed through the reform efforts) is a huge challenge.
To meet the urgent need to educate its employees, World Vision Romania, an NGO linked to World Vision International, contacted the Jordan Institute for Families for help. Part of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Jordan Institute drew upon its extensive experience developing, delivering, and supporting human services training to develop classroom-based courses for World Vision Romania's case managers and supervisors.
World Vision Romania also asked the Jordan Institute to help it explore the possibilities of e-learning. "We are in the very earliest stages of this process," explains the Jordan Institute's Lane Cooke. "I think we are all convinced that, because the learning needs of social workers in Romania as a whole are very broad--they need to educate professionals in a range of specialties on an ongoing basis--e-learning will be a strategy World Vision will pursue some time in the future. The question is whether it is the right strategy for them right now, given their current technological and financial resources."
To find out, a team from the Jordan Institute traveled to Romania in October of this year. During their trip they met with case managers and supervisors, to assess their openness and preferences with regard to technology-mediated learning, as well as with administrators and managers, to get a clearer picture of their plans for human resource development.
"Now that we're back," Cooke says, "we will analyze our findings and present them to World Vision Romania. It is our hope that we will be able to partner with them again in the near future to ensure that their employees have the skills, knowledge, and tools they need to make brighter future for Romania's families and children."
John McMahon is a clinical instructor in the Family and Children's Resource Program, part of the Jordan Institute for Families in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To learn more about the Resource Program's curricula and online newsletters, visit the Web site at http://ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/.
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